Trentonian Editorial: GOP fall guys

Is the Republican Party, schlemiel that it is, setting itself up to take the fall for ObamaCare if the Affordable Care Act (its Orwellian, official title) indeed implodes as the GOP is predicting? Incredibly, the answer appears to be yes — even right after the GOP took the fall for the partial shutdown of government.

How in the heck could the GOP possibly take the fall for ObamaCare when ObamaCare is entirely, 100 percent, the creation of President Obama and his congressional ObamaCrats and when Republicans attempted, umpteen times, to repeal the thing but were thwarted in those endeavors?

Easy. In the event ObamaCare flops, President Obama will have the assistance of his “mainstream media” cronies and consorts in shifting the blame for the flop on “obstructionist” Republicans. Plus the assistance of the clueless GOP itself, always eager to be its own worst enemy.

Obama’s media cronies and consorts will mimic any meme the ObamaCrats conjure up. And the GOP seems inclined to play the role of Charlie Brown in Lucy’s predictable yank-away-the-football prank. There are GOP “leaders” like Sen. Ted Cruz who are exhorting the party, “Let’s get out there and fall on our ass!”

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You doubt that ObamaCrats can stick Republicans with the blame for an imploded ObamaCare if it comes to that? Ponder how slickly Obama has shifted blame for a moribund economy onto Republicans going on five years now — even though the president got everything he demanded in the way of supposed “solutions”: a massive spending “stimulus,” tax hikes, debt-ceiling boost, and TARP bailouts which he says saved America from another Great Depression (even though the bailouts, in fact, were set in motion, for good or ill, by his predecessor).

Republicans in fact have introduced several alternatives to ObamaCare, some of them, yes, politically unrealistic in their ideological premises but others of them common sense and practical. They should combine the most common sense and practical three or four of these in a unified bill, give it a catchy name and talk about nothing but it. And cease and desist even mentioning ObamaCare.

To the extent possible, Republicans should keep Speaker Sad Sack and moon-faced Mitch away from the TV cameras. Let Nancy the Ninny and Harry the Hack have all the media attention they crave and can suck up.

It’s entirely likely the 18-to-35 demographic will resists going along with the ObamaCare program and picking up a major share of its tab. It’s entirely likely ObamaCare’s “Independent Payment Advisory Board” — whose decisions actually will be mandatory and unreviewable, not “advisory” — will nix treatments for Granny and Gramps on the grounds that they’re too old and the treatments too expensive. It’s entirely likely that many will lose the doctor of their choice and face massive new out-of-pocket deductibles. Well, then, let Nancy and Harry explain it all away.

Because propaganda inevitably undermines itself with has its tiresome, untruthful repetitions, not even the Obama media cronies and consorts are likely to be of much useful assistance.